you can take the boy out of the desert
by Lorata
Summary: In which what was meant to be a silly fic about Luke's farmboy water obsession turned into a story about grief, mourning, culture shock and friendship.
1. Chapter 1

"Has anyone seen Luke?"

The princess slides into the seat across from Han, her forehead creased. Half a dozen cracks fly through Han's head by force of habit — _should you be frowning sweetheart won't that give you wrinkles, what's the princess doing slumming it down here with the grunts in the commissary, what am I his big brother?_ — but he lets them slip past just as quickly. Leia wore the same outfit through her captivity, a firefight, a long sludge through knee-high watery garbage, and the entire trip back to Yavin without complaining, and she'd even gone straight to the briefing to bring her intel to the generals before allowing herself any personal time. ("No time for our sorrows," she'd said, and no time for showers either, apparently, until C-3P0 found a diplomatic way to suggest that the princess might want to avail herself of the refresher now that she had the liberty.)

The other thing is that while Leia doesn't swear or make dirty wisecracks or try to muscle in on inside jokes like the higher-ups who want to be thought of as one of the soldiers, she's never made herself too good to be with them. If she doesn't eat with the crews it's only because she doesn't eat very much at all, letting food get cold as she ignores the plate by her elbow, poring over maps and intelligence reports and who knows what else. Threepio has found a new calling fussing over her, since apparently protocol droids might be all but useless but they are impervious to the princess' death glare.

As for the third, well, Han would protest that everyone seems to think he knows where Luke is or what's going through the kid's damn fool head at any given time, but he really can't get too huffy about it. Not when he turned his ship around and went back to shoot a bunch of TIE fighters off Luke's back against his better judgement, anyway.

Beside him Chewie huffs a quiet laugh under his breath, likely guessing at his thoughts, not that Han is going to react and give him the satisfaction. Instead he stretches casually, making sure his elbow finds Chewie's ribs, and his friend snorts before dumping another splatter of cheap spices onto his stew in attempt to make it edible by Wookiee standards.

For a moment Han considers messing with her, telling her he has no idea where Luke is, but Leia has sharp, dark eyes that cut through bullshit like no one he's ever seen. Already her mouth has thinned; if Han tries playing around today he's not sure he won't end up with the cheap Rebel swill splashed all down his shirt, and he doesn't have a whole wardrobe to pick through if that happens. "He's outside," Han says, biting back a sigh. "Communing with nature."

Leia frowns. "He's what?"

"I dunno, maybe it's a Jedi thing." Han waves a hand. "I caught him sitting out by that waterfall a couple times, just staring at the river. I didn't ask."

Leia drums her fingers against the tabletop, fingernails clicking lightly. Han pulls back the urge to cover her hand with his to make the rhythmic noise stop, since Her Worship would get the wrong idea and stomp around muttering about smugglers and their lack of respect for boundaries. "I'm worried about him," she says quietly, and there, she's dropped the princess and the rebel commander act both, speaking for once like she doesn't have a ring of subordinates clustered around her awaiting orders. "The Death Star gave him something to focus on. Now that it's gone — I don't know."

"It ain't like the fight's over," Han says dryly. "Plenty of Imperial troops still wreaking havoc on the galaxy. I bet there are half a dozen massacres happening right now, if he needs something else."

He doesn't mean it, it's just that everyone sitting around talking about feelings and duty and responsibility makes Han itchy. He fulfilled his job, got his payment, and he should have left; why he's still here is anyone's guess, but he really doesn't want to think too much on it. Even so Chewie gives him a baleful stare, and Han grimaces. Kashyyyk is still an Imperial protectorate, and will be until the Rebellion has the resources to supplement a full uprising. Han reaches up and claps Chewie on the shoulder, giving him a rough shake in apology, and Chewie mutters something uncomplimentary about Han's heritage that suffices as acceptance.

Leia says nothing, watching Han with that quiet, steely grace that underlies everything she does when not exploding. Han ignores it for all of ten seconds before he gives up and pushes his tray away with a gusty sigh. "Fine, I'll go talk to him, see what's up," he says. Leia actually smiles at him, not her calculated politician face or the tight one she gives people when she thinks they're idiots but is too polite to eviscerate them publicly but an actual smile, bright and relieved, and for a second Han loses the thread of his thoughts. "I, uh. Anyway, whatever, if he starts crying I'm tagging you in, so watch your comm."

"Of course," Leia says with mock solicitousness. As always no one else is around to see her being snarky, because the galaxy has a sense of humour and likes Han to be the only one who knows how much she makes fun of him. She leans across the table to close her hand over Han's wrist, slim fingers deceptively strong. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah," Han says, and pushes himself up from his seat so fast he bangs his knee on the underside of the table. He makes sure to bump into Chewie on the way past in retaliation for the snuffling laugh.

* * *

Sure enough he finds Luke on the rocks at the base of the waterfall, sitting with his legs folded to his chest and his chin resting on his knees. The riverbank is slick and wet, and Han manoeuvres his way through the muck and the slippery leaves to crouch next to him. "Hey, kid," he says. He gathers and discards a few sarcastic openers, and can't help wondering when he started caring about sensitive farm kids and their feelings. "Leia's looking for you."

Luke doesn't look over. Sweat and the spray from the waterfall have dampened his hair and turned his shirt from cream to a dull, greyish beige. "I know."

"Maybe you should go in and see her, so she doesn't keep following me around the base asking me for updates," Han suggests. Luke cracks a small smile but doesn't unwind. Han sighs. "C'mon, kid, you're worrying everybody. Stop staring at the waterfall and come inside, let your friends know you're not going to turn into a hermit in the jungle."

Luke lets out a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh, but he doesn't move. "You know, the first time I went outside here, I thought I was dying?"

Well, that's dramatic, though Han has the good sense not to point it out. Luke has a wounded face like you wouldn't believe. "Yeah?" he says instead. "I mean, I know the food's bad and all, but I figured after living on that dustbowl planet of yours anything would be a step up."

"That's what I mean." Luke runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends of the dark blond strands. "It's the air. How often did you go to Tattooine?"

"Often enough but not for very long. Lotta business, not so much with the pleasure on that rock. No offence."

"None taken, believe me." Luke turns back to stare at the waterfall again, his faraway expression pinching around the nose. "My uncle was a farmer. We had over sixty moisture vaporators that pulled water out of the air, plus a bunch of condensers. Uncle Owen had them calibrated to be able to sustain us and the farm with only 1.3% moisture in the air, and sometimes we didn't even get that much. When I was a kid there was a drought so bad everyone had to buy water from Jabba the Hutt, until finally someone ran the gangs off."

"I may have heard something about that," Han says neutrally. He'd been a teenager then, not yet in on the smuggling game and nowhere near Tatooine, but Jabba liked his schemes and tended to recycle his favourites. Even after the Great Drought Jabba hired goons to run a water racket now and then, and Han had been tempted by the pay once or twice but never actually went through with it. He carried stolen goods and ferried weapons during any number of interplanetary conflicts, but taking water from people literally dying of thirst had been a bit much, even for him. Plus Chewie would've snarled at him, life debt or no life debt, and nobody nags like a Wookiee.

This feels like the sort of conversation that means more than what the words are saying, and Han has never been fantastic at those. He's never been pro at nostalgia, either; why keep looking at the past, full of mistakes and missed opportunities and a minefield of _should've would've could've_ when the moment is what mattered? Then again, he'd never lost his family to a stormtrooper attack, and if he prefers leaving that sort of mushy talk to Leia or Chewie, Han at least knows better than to say so. It won't kill Han to sit here for a little while and let the kid babble about moisture farming and his dead uncle, even if it never comes back around to Yavin IV making him think he died. Maybe that's another Jedi thing, who knows.

After awhile Luke continues. "The first time I went outside I couldn't breathe. The air was so thick and heavy, and it kept pressing down on my chest. My face felt like someone slapped me with a wet towel. I actually thought I was drowning. I asked someone, and they said the humidity level here never drops below 98%. I thought they were making fun of me but then I noticed how everything keeps dripping, you know, all the railings inside are always beading up. And here I thought the temple had leaky pipes, but it's just the air making all that water. The air!" Luke laughs, half breathless and disbelieving. "If I tried to set up one of our vaporators here, it would overload and corrode in less than hour."

"You're gonna wet the bed if we stay here long enough for monsoon season," Han says, nudging him in the shoulder.

Luke shoots him a small grin, ducking his head and letting his hair fall over his eyes. "It's just funny, you know? All my life I dreamed about getting off Tatooine. You know, joining the Academy and having adventures, even fighting against the Empire and becoming a hero. But I never imagined air so full of water that you practically need gills to live in it. Or —" He gestures at the waterfall, eyes wide and reverent. "I had books, okay, it's not like I'd never heard of waterfalls, but I thought they had to be exaggerating. This is — it's incredible."

One of these days Han will have to tell Luke that he should probably ditch the wide-eyed earnestness if he ever wants to shed the Outer Rim farm boy reputation. For now he shakes his head and drapes his arms over his knees, looking out at the water cascading over the edge of the embankment and splashing into the river below. It is pretty, if you're into that sort of thing. "You know most people would find a girl to show this sort of view," Han says instead, and laughs when Luke's eyes bug out even further. "Just sayin'. Pretty view, emotional openness, I've heard the ladies love that."

"Hey, I only blew up the Death Star last week," Luke shoots back. "Maybe let's take things one step at a time."

Han tousles Luke's hair on purpose just to watch him grimace. "Sure thing, kid," he says, and stands up. "Don't stay out too long, Threepio was complaining about Her Worshipfulness' clothes getting mouldy when he laid them out to dry the other day. Wouldn't want you sporting mushrooms in your hair, now."

Luke rolls his eyes, but then he heaves himself to his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I should probably get some food, anyway, unless you've eaten it all."

"I take the last sweetmelon _one time_ ," Han complains, and together they head back toward the main complex.


	2. Chapter 2

Wedge sits alone in the mess hall, hunched over and staring at his food and pushing around chunks of potato with his fork. When he sat down he'd curled a protective arm around his plate automatically, pulling it to him to ward off anyone trying to filch morsels before remembering he doesn't need to do that now because there's no one left to steal anything.

Usually it was Biggs and Jek, both young and brash and confident, who'd drop down on either side of Wedge when he was eating. Biggs would throw an arm over his shoulder, his grin sharp and friendly at the same time, keeping Wedge distracted while Jek reached over and grabbed whatever part of the meal Wedge had been saving for last. He'd complained every single time, and they always laughed and told him to eat faster if he didn't want to lose it. But then Biggs would charm an extra dessert from the woman working the commissary counter for Wedge, and Jek would make a crude remark about one of the officers and goad Wedge into laughing.

Wedge was the youngest of the pilots, even if he'd been flying half his life and working for the Rebel Alliance longer, and he hadn't quite managed to live up to the famed bravado and charm of his Corellian heritage. Biggs, on the other hand, hailed from a backwater planet — Biggs, who'd never flown anything larger than a skyhopper before joining the Academy — Biggs who always left the base when it rained to stand and turn his face up to the sky while the water droplets beaded on his moustache — Biggs had self-assurance and charisma enough for half the squadron. Jek, meanwhile, carried his weight like a suit of armour, throwing back every gibe with one twice as pointed. Once a comment went too far, struck a little too deep, and Jek's returning punch laid the man on the floor with a smashed-in nose, the pilot not even breaking a sweat.

Biggs and Jek reminded Wedge of the older brothers he never had, teasing and cocky and intimidating, and at first Wedge had been half-afraid to speak in front of them in case they turned on him. But much like brothers, they had somehow decided that only they were allowed to give Wedge grief, and anyone who mocked him in their presence never did it again.

And now they're gone, scattered into dust to be pulled into orbit around the planet, and Wedge has an entire plate full of food to eat all by himself and no appetite to do it.

It's probably ridiculous to feel alone in a cafeteria filled with people, but while there's the usual mix of techs and grunts and ground soldiers, no one breaches the table where the pilots used to sit. It's not just Biggs and Jek missing but all of them, Red and Gold Squadrons both. There's a plaque up in one of the halls that Princess Leia had commissioned after the battle with all their names on it, but Wedge hasn't gone to see it. He can name every single one of the fallen without blinking, tell you how they liked their coffee or what they brought with them from their homeworlds.

John D. had a boyfriend on another base they all pretended he'd invented for street cred; Dave and Pops had perfected the mix of Dad-like sternness and reassurance without losing their sense of humour. Even Tiree, whose piloting skills outweighed his likeable personality by a factor of five, had kept a fish in his quarters and doted on it until it died the week before the battle. Biggs, who considered the entire concept of owning fish as a pet to be a ridiculous waste of water, nevertheless hosted a funeral and delivered a grand eulogy. They all attended in dress uniform because rebels stick together.

Jek's friend Janson had missed out on the Death Star mission, grounded with a fever that sent Jek in his place; Wedge tried to contact him after everything settled, but someone must have beaten him to it — or, more likely, he'd tapped into their transmissions on his personal console and heard the whole thing go down — because Janson hasn't answered any of Wedge's calls. It's probably for the best, anyway, since Wedge doesn't even know what he would say: _Don't worry that you weren't there, I was and I couldn't save any of them, I probably would've let you die too_.

Wedge joined the Rebel Alliance after losing his parents as a teenager, and back then smuggling and gun-running had given him the purpose he needed to outrun the spectre of grief that shadowed his every move. Destroying the Death Star didn't take out the Empire, only its main weapon, and there is still a lot of war to fight, but losing so many friends in the space of an hour has sucked away most of the glory. He'll get over it, Corellians always do, but in the meantime Wedge can't stop thinking of Biggs every time it rains.

The conversations around the room stutter out one by one as the sounds of a scuffle filter through from the corridor. Raised voices, uneven footfalls and the sharp slap of bare hands against fabric, until a superior officer's bark cuts it short. Wedge does his best to tune it out, not his business, except that moments later a red-faced, ruffled Luke Skywalker storms into the mess hall, cheeks puffed out and fists spasming at his sides.

Nobody is quite sure what to do with Luke, the farmboy who saved them all, and the funny thing is that Wedge isn't really any better. Sure, he flew with Luke during the battle, even took orders from him without question once command of the squad transferred over, but that doesn't mean Wedge knows him, not really. They'd talked a bit before the battle, just enough for Wedge to glean that he'd come from the same backwater as Biggs and carried himself with the same easy cockiness that meant he'd been the big fish in his own small pond and never been tested against anyone better.

Except then Luke had destroyed the Death Star and saved the day, and Wedge stood in the crowd and watched him get a medal of commendation and wondered what that must feel like. Luke grinned and bounced on his heels while Wedge gnawed on the inside of his cheek, tasting copper and bile and thinking of dead friends, of the shudder of the laser cannons impacting his engine — the red warning lights that flashed across his cockpit and the screech of his astromech and Luke demanding he get clear.

Wedge hasn't quite figured Luke out yet, especially since he's confident and self-assured without ever being mean or bullying or even self-aggrandizing, but now Wedge is the only pilot in the cafeteria and Luke is standing in the middle of the room looking lost, and so why not. "Hey," Wedge calls out, waving a hand. "Come sit."

Luke stares at him blankly for a second, then shakes himself and strides over. He drops heavily into the chair, knocking the table on the way down and rattling Wedge's spoon against the side of his tray. Wedge waits for an explanation — Luke is friendly, striking up conversations with anyone who will listen, probably coming from only knowing half a dozen other humans in his life before the Alliance — but Luke only scowls at the tabletop, a muscle in his jaw working.

"So," Wedge says. "Everything okay back there?"

"Huh? Oh." Luke grimaces and pushes a hand through his hair. Most of the pilots on the base went military-short, habit after defecting from the Academy or flying wit the Alliance for years and easier to keep under a flight helmet, but Luke hasn't bothered even after ditching the loose, flowing desert clothes for more practical pants and jackets. It's charming or something, probably. "Just — people. Being jerks, you know how it is. Make fun of the wide-eyed farmboy."

Not even a medal and official commendations from Princess Leia can protect you from everything, apparently. Wedge makes a sympathetic noise. "They're just sore because they didn't destroy a superweapon their first mission," Wedge says, and Luke flushes across the cheekbones. "Seriously though, it's probably just hazing. You showed up and blew up the Death Star before anyone really got the chance to talk to you, they're trying to make it up."

"I don't mind hazing," Luke says in a voice that means he definitely does. "My friends — back home, we used to bust on each other all the time. I'm not a baby, I just —" He snaps his mouth shut, brows furrowed. "They think I'm stupid, or gullible, or something, because I'm from the Outer Rim. They keep trying to get me to fall for the most obvious things."

"Like?" Wedge asks in spite of himself. He'd gone through a fair share of teasing himself when he joined up, but only because he'd crashed the first ship the Alliance gave him, broke his legs so badly he had to beg them to let him fly again.

Luke glares over Wedge's shoulder. "Kael tried to tell me his parents had a pool in their backyard."

Wedge waits for the rest of it, but when Luke doesn't continue he sits back, blinking. "And?"

"Not like a bathtub," Luke says, waving one hand impatiently. "I've heard of those, I'm not an idiot, okay. And not a pond or a cistern, either, that at least would've made sense, but he tried to tell me his parents dug a giant hole in the ground and filled it with water and they went swimming in it." He blows out a hard breath. "I just, that's so stupid. If a planet has enough water for that to be possible, then there would be lakes and things you could go swim in, like here. Nobody would actually waste that much water!"

Oh, boy. Wedge scratches his cheek, trying to find a polite way to say it, but Corellia isn't exactly known for tact. Finally he takes a deep breath and dives in. "Look, Luke, they might have been teasing you, but swimming pools are a real thing. People have them on Corellia all the time."

Luke stares at him like he wants to call him out on a lie, but they've flown into battle together and after that there are some things you have to take on faith. "You're kidding. Corellia has oceans!"

"Yeah, but not everybody lives near one. Plus some people just like the privacy. Not everyone wants to share the beach with hundreds of tourists."

Luke's nostrils flare, and his hands tighten on the table like he's about to push himself up, but he catches himself. "Okay," he says. "And that's — fine? Nobody gets in trouble for wasting a primary resource like that? They said there were swimming pools on Coruscant but I've looked it up, and all the oceans were drained centuries ago. Now everything is recycled from the polar ice caps and highly regulated. You're telling me that on a planet like that, people actually keep thousands of gallons to themselves?"

Wedge had never really thought of it that way, but the pulsing vein in Luke's forehead stops him from saying so. "Rich people are rich wherever you go," he says with a shrug, spreading his hands. He almost asks Luke if anyone has told him about fountains yet, or water sculptures, but decides against it.

"I know that. Biggs' father was a water pirate," Luke says, startling Wedge. Biggs never talked about his family, even though he mentioned his friends a great deal — enough that Wedge never thought anything of the absence. Huh. "He owned a bunch of farms, used to sell water in town for way more than it cost him to get it. Biggs fought with him all the time. But that was just enough for drinking, not for a whole cistern."

"Most people with pools probably aren't in a water shortage, if it helps," Wedge says. He's not sure if it does even in his head, and Luke barely registers the statement anyway. "It's just — a thing."

"I already thought baths were weird," Luke says. He leans forward, resting his head in his hands and digging the heels into the curve of his eye sockets. "I mean who does that? Who just sits and soaks in their own dirt? Except for, apparently, everybody. I just —" He looks up, eyes wild, and Wedge sucks in a breath. He's seen those eyes, red and rimmed with white, staring back at him in the mirror each morning. "I wish Biggs were here. He'd understand. He'd get it and he'd find a way to make it funny, and I wouldn't be sitting here like a blasted idiot, missing him and trying not to feel like everything is moving too fast for me to catch up —"

Most of the talk in the cafeteria has gone silent now as the officers and grunts lean in to listen while pretending to be interested in their hash, and Wedge swallows a stab of anger. He stands up, gesturing to Luke with one hand. "C'mon, let's walk."

Walk _where_ Wedge has no idea, but anything has to be better than staying here. Luke's crackling energy like a severed power cable, and he might be skinny but kids from the Outer Rim tend to be scrappy and know how to hold their own in a fight. A few more looks the wrong way and their latest hero will be hauled in for brawling. Luke hesitates for a second but then joins him, and they head out into the corridor toward the training grounds.

They walk in silence, weaving their way through the recruits practicing their hand-to-hand or short-range targeting, occasionally dancing to the side to avoid getting bowled over. "Did Biggs ever tell you the thing that shocked him most about the Empire?" Wedge asks finally.

Luke gives him a sharp sideways look, lips thinned, and Wedge recognizes a flash of something that might be envy before he smooths it away. "No," Luke says. "I only saw him once after he joined the Academy, when he told me he was defecting. He didn't want to say much in case it got me in trouble."

Wedge nods. Biggs had talked about Luke, the kid from back home with a heart only matched by his courage, and how if he had his way he'd be off Tatooine and getting himself killed in a second. Better for Luke to stay on Tatooine for a while, until the war cooled down a bit. He'd laugh at anyone who said it, but Biggs obviously cared for his friend a lot, and looked after him as much as he could even from afar.

"They were learning about interrogation methods," Wedge says, and Luke grimaces. Rumours say that the princess had been tortured by Darth Vader herself, but while Luke might be happy to chatter about his own exploits, he'd remained firmly tight-lipped about anything not his story to tell. "He said — one of the ways to get people to talk is to hold their heads underwater, make them think they're going to drown. They teach you exactly how many seconds to do it, enough so the prisoner blacks out for a second but before the lungs start taking water in. The Empire did a lot of things, worse things, but that one got to Biggs the most. He said water is precious where he came from, and to use it for torture like that — he couldn't take it."

Luke chews on that for a while, hands in his pockets finally instead of clenching and unclenching at his sides. "It sounds like you knew him well," he says, glancing at Wedge. This time it's curious, not jealous, which at least is something.

Wedge lifts one shoulder and lets it drop. "We were assigned together on most missions, and we shared a lot of downtime on base. He was a good pilot and a good man." Luke's expression stays neutral, polite, and Wedge decides to risk it. "I don't know if I'd call him _nice_ , since he spent half his time teasing anyone even a little sensitive, but … good, yes."

Luke glances at Wedge for a second, then laughs, the sound short and startled and genuine. "Thanks for saying that," he says, and he punches Wedge in the shoulder. "Everyone keeps talking about Biggs — about all of them — like everything was perfect. Biggs and I used to egg each other on until we nearly got ourselves killed just for fun. He'd wind me up just to see me go crazy, and I'd —" He shakes his head. "I don't know. We promised we'd join the Rebellion together, fly together, and the first time we did he didn't make it back. And then everybody keeps talking about him like some kind of storybook saint, and it's not the Biggs I knew at all. It's nice to know someone else knew him as a person."

It's nice to see the Luke Skywalker Biggs talked about with affection and fond exasperation, too, not just the hero who rescued a princess and destroyed the Death Star. "I lost a lot of friends that day," Wedge says, and Luke lets out a slow breath. "I don't know if you ever want to talk about it, but if you did, that might not be bad."

"Beats sitting in my room talking to the walls and hoping Ben answers," Luke says dryly.

Wedge waits for an explanation, doesn't get one, then decides to move on. It's probably a Force thing, anyway. "Did you ever hear about Tiree's pet fish?" Wedge asks instead. "Biggs had a field day over that one."

"People keep _pet fish_?" Luke bursts out, goggling with the same absolute horror and disbelief as Biggs back in the day. "Fish, alive, in water, just to _stare at_?"

"Oh yeah," Wedge says, hamming it up, and it's not as good as having Biggs back but it does soothe the ache just a little. "Did you know on a lot of planets people can get water piped straight into their houses, but they still go out and buy it in bottles because it feels more classy?"

Luke flings up his hands. "The galaxy is ridiculous! I'm going to need a good drink if I'm going to hear all this." He jerks his thumb toward the door. "There's a spring down by the waterfall, you can drink straight from it because it's so pure. I'd never seen anything like it. Wanna go?"

Only a Tatooinian would consider fresh water as 'going for a drink', and Wedge grins. "Yeah, sure, why not. You can tell me what Biggs was like when he went through his awkward teen stage, because he says he never had one but we all know he was lying."

Luke's face lights up, chasing away the last of the shadows. "Oh, he did not, really? So he never told you what happened when he first started trying to grow that moustache? You're in for a treat."

The dead are no less gone, but their fingers aren't digging into Wedge's shoulder with quite the same ferocity for now, and he'll take it. "I can't wait to hear this," Wedge says. They step out through the main doors of the temple into the sunshine, shielding their eyes against the hazy glare.

"This way," Luke says with a gesture. "Anyway, when we were around fourteen, Biggs decided he wanted to impress this girl, only she was a few years older…"

The story makes Wedge laugh like he hasn't in weeks, and the spring has the best, crispest water he's ever drunk in his life.


End file.
